


he knew

by Imatableclock



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Familiars, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Magic Revealed, POV Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), bit too late tho, im so sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-08 05:32:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19100692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imatableclock/pseuds/Imatableclock
Summary: Arthur always knew things, but he didn't know this until it was too late.





	he knew

**Author's Note:**

> Arthur Pendragon got a golden retriever in times they hadn’t even been bred. Well.

Arthur knew of them since he was a child. The maid who served when he was a child would have a small, fuzzy rabbit following her as she puttered about cleaning his room. The first time he saw the thing, he reached out to pet it before the maid pulled it away, admonishing him for touching someone’s familiar was akin to touching their very soul. He knew that familiars aren’t bound in any way to their people, that the people aren’t bound to their familiars. That they remained by choice. So when a strange dog with golden hair and fluffy paws imprinted on him, he was so happy he skipped training to play with the thing. It-he was different than his other dogs, didn’t bark or hurt or push but simply rested his head on Arthur’s knee as he sat cross-legged on the grass after running with him for ages.

That was the only time he remembered that he felt truly loved in his childhood. His father would sooner thrust his own huge, gleaming sword into Arthur’s pudgy hands instead of holding Arthur in his arms. Morgana, who strutted around with a sleek leopard in tow, would rather run off to play with her maid, who had a huge almond tree rowing next to her house, and had no qualms in informing him so. It was rare that he was comforted; only by Gaius when he hurt himself particularly bad, or Leon when he got his footwork wrong even after so many tries. The maid only wiped his tears if he cried.

Over the years, he had filled the hole in his heart with a golden furball named Cal. His father had pondered over his Chosen for weeks as he sat at the head of the table at diner and stroked the huge lizard-dragon next to him; the dog was unlike any he had seen. That didn’t stop Arthur from spending every free second he had with Cal; he soon forgot about the fact that his father never hugged him or that Morgana would choose to play with a serving girl instead of him.

The hole which he scraped empty again when he saw a peasant boy with a blue butterfly trailing along behind him. It was a slow process, and he had no choice in it. It happened as the boy said “I would not lie to you” with a solemnity that Arthur had never heard, over panic and loss and affection and contentment. It was only days into Merlin employment that Cal nudged his leg with his head for a petting.

Every time Arthur tried to touch the butterfly it fluttered away. Merlin didn’t talk about it. Arthur tried to satisfy himself with whatever part of Merlin he had.

The point is, Arthur knew. What they were and what they meant. He knew what Morgana became when she killed the leopard and escaped, emerging years later with a snake loosely wrapped around her collarbones. He knew what Guinevere had always been when the almond tree grew large enough to picnic under. He knew what was meant when the butterfly always fluttered out of reach.

But he had no idea what a whimpering black cat with golden eyes who had clambered out of Merlin’s chambers as the boy himself lay on the patient’s cot with a knife in his chest which was supposed to be in Arthur’s meant. He didn’t know when the cat curled into Merlin’s side as he wheezed, and Gaius pulled out the knife and bandaged him. He didn’t know even as he remembered a golden-eyed owl being slain by his father and Gaius weeping. He didn’t know until he held a corpse in his arms and a cat turned into shimmering mist. He had no idea he knew until then.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not even gonna justify that.


End file.
